Most people don’t go to Edinburgh to relax. To see Hogmanay in, yes; to do 350 plays in a week at the Festival, yes; to abuse their livers, yes; but not to get away from it all. Yet Edinburgh is becoming increasingly popular with the shopping-and-spa brigade, with ever-growing numbers of designer boutiques, luxury hotels and fancy restaurants. Fearless to the cause, I decided to test the city’s claims as the new place to pamper.

Fortunately, you don’t need to stay in expensive luxury to enjoy the high life: a day pass to the Escape gym and Cowshed spa at Edinburgh’s super-posh Scotsman hotel costs just £25, allowing you to soak up the perks without using up your annual shopping budget. The gym itself is very well equipped, and offers all sorts of classes, including step, yoga, pilates and, if you prefer a spot of masochism, spinning. Escape also boasts Scotland’s first stainless-steel swimming pool, although its industrial-chic fittings and metallic sheen make swimming lengths feel alarmingly like you are trapped in a very large operating theatre. If it were kidney shaped, I think I’d have donned scrubs.

To further cleanse your pores, you can also splash out with some treatments at the Cowshed – which offers massage, facials, painful removal of hair and other beauty essentials. The spa is owned by the Soho House Group and, apparently, their products are full of herbs lovingly grown in the gardens of their celeb hangout in Somerset, Babington House.

There’s no denying that a visit to a spa can be rather intimidating. There’s always that nagging feeling that you might be about to break some crucial code known to everyone except you, and there’s also that awful moment when your therapist leaves the room, leaving you completely bewildered as to how many layers to take off. Or maybe that’s just me. At any rate, my therapist was very gentle as she guided me through a mini-facial, which lasted 30 minutes and included a bewildering array of cleansers, toners and moisturisers. It also included steam exfoliation from a machine that could have doubled as a sci-fi prop.

Having been thoroughly spoiled, it was time to hit the shops. If trawling through some rather odd-smelling second-hand – sorry, “vintage” - clothes is your thing, then W M Armstrong & Sons on the Grassmarket will make you think you’ve died and gone to Rachel Zoe’s wardrobe. It’s a deceptively vast emporium of vintage goodies, from men’s shaving kits in leather cases to 1950s cocktail dresses. It’s packed floor to ceiling with the sublime and the ridiculous, and some nice sensible cashmere jumpers too. If you fancy yourself as the next Sienna Miller, you’ll want to set aside a long time for this experience. Just up the road, on West Port, Godiva is more self-consciously trendy, with prices to match, but still lots to gawp at.

Once you’ve exhausted yourself trying to decide if that belt is fantastically cool, or the spit of the one your Mum bought from M&S circa 1982, there are plenty of shops where you can purchase rather more fragrant-smelling clothes or even, dare I say, new ones. George Street and the surrounding area has most of the upper-end high-street retailers – like Whistles, Space NK and Reiss – while the Harvey Nichols in St Andrew Square is also a lot more serene than the London version, but just as fashionable.

Edinburgh also has a huge range of cafes, restaurants and bars, in which you can utterly ruin your newfound serenity – although the recently introduced smoking ban means you can wake up the next morning without feeling like you slept in an ashtray. We had dinner on Saturday night at The Tower restaurant, at the top of the National Museum of Scotland, with stunning views of the floodlit Castle. Then Sunday morning was idled away over brunch at the fabulous vegetarian restaurant, Henderson’s on Hanover Street. The latter has a fantastic value set lunch for around £7-10, including an extremely good cherry cheesecake.

After that, it was time for a guilty trip back to the spa for that spinning class … and some more pampering, of course.